Beyond the cooking of the simple fare there were no tasks.

And as there were no tasks, there was no system.

He and Bess began one thing, to leave it; to begin another, to leave that; and then do nothing but lie under the spruces and watch the great cloud-sails majestically move along the ramparts, and dream and dream.

The valley was a golden, sunlit world.
It was silent.

The sighing wind and the twittering quail and the singing birds, even the rare and seldom-occurring hollow crack of a sliding weathered stone, only thickened and deepened that insulated silence.
Venters and Bess had vagrant minds.
"Bess, did I tell you about my horse Wrangle ?" inquired Venters.
"A hundred times," she replied.
"Oh, have I?
I'd forgotten.